Deluge Compounds Crisis: Heavy Rains Flood Displacement Camps Across Gaza, Leaving 70,000 Tents Inundated

Torrential rainfall has inundated displacement camps across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, flooding an estimated 70,000 tents and leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians without shelter, local authorities reported Saturday.

Since the early hours, displaced families have been forced to flee inundated encampments in Gaza City, northern governorates, and parts of the central territory as rainwater overwhelmed makeshift shelters. The Palestinian Civil Defence said the storm struck camps already weakened by months of conflict, triggering the collapse of dozens of cracked walls and damaged roofs, resulting in injuries—some critical—across multiple areas.

Spokesman Mahmoud Basal told Agence France-Presse that emergency teams fielded more than 1,500 distress calls overnight from residents pleading for urgent assistance. He warned that the agency is operating without equipment or operational capacity to manage the scale of the crisis.

“We have issued an urgent distress call to the international community and humanitarian organisations to intervene immediately to save hundreds of thousands of displaced people from the flooding of their tents,” Basal said. “We cannot face the consequences of this storm on our own.”

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